


in the morning [it’ll find you]

by chasingblue57



Category: Code Black
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, The Devil's Workshop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9604676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingblue57/pseuds/chasingblue57
Summary: After the outbreak, Noa finds Mario sitting in the old surgical gallery.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the most recent episode (2x15), and this definitely jumps time until it’s all finished. I was actually using the starting line of this for something different, but I thought it fit well with this whole concept.

“Do you believe in God?”

The sound of her voice, quiet and still a little hollow, startles him. He’s standing in the old operating room, the giant gallery they stopped using more than a decade ago, staring into the Los Angeles skyline, marveling at a sunset he wasn’t sure he was going to get to see.

Mostly, he’s just breathing, one slow draw at a time, trying to get his hands to stop shaking and his heart to stop racing and dropping in alternate, nauseating intervals. “What?” he glances away from the crimson streaked view in front of him to turn to Noa, eyes focusing in just enough to take in ashen face, the neat frown lines that seem etched permanently along her mouth, the wisps of hair that have long since escaped, the way she looks like she could sleep forever and still be tired.

She drops down next to him, not quite close enough to touch, and repeats her question. “Do you believe in God?”

His gaze wanders back into the improbably sunset and one of those long, slow breathes falls out too fast, too loud as he searches for the response to a question he’s not sure he knows how to answer. “I really don’t know,” is all he can come up with, trying not to dwell on everything he’s felt the last three days (fear, desperation, loss, grief, joy, regret, relief, guilt).

“I don’t,” she answers into the short silence that follows; clipped and sure, so brashly certain, so Noa that the empty feeling in his chest warms a little, for just a second (because it feels like the sort of thing that would have happened a week ago, and for just a second, he can pretend that it is a week ago). But she’s clearly not done, and this time when she starts to talk, her voice wavers a little, drawing his attention back to the crease in her brow, the tears pooling beneath her eyes, “But I prayed anyway,” and he doesn’t need to ask when, because of course he knows, “I begged and I bargained and I made so many promises,” she chokes on the last word and it breaks the tears free, but she doesn’t lean in to him, barley moves at all as her expression sharpens miserably. “I believe it medicine, not God but damn it Mario, you almost died.”

He pulls her in on that and Noa’s reaction is immediate: she buries her face against his chest and wraps her arms around his torso and when she feels his shaking hands against her back, she pulls him in closer. “I know,” he mumbles, feeling helpless and worthless and exhausted.

It’s a long time before they settle and it’s Noa who calms first, just enough to pull away and find his gaze. “I’ve never really needed anyone before,” she breathes, hesitant, because she can’t not say it after all that’s happened but it’s still so damn hard, to fall apart, to know who you want to be there picking up the pieces, even when you know you’re willing to do the same. “It’s never really mattered that much before, but–”

Mario nods, smiling at just one corner of his mouth, because he knows. “But you’re different,” he finishes.

Another set of tears roll down her cheeks as she nods, eyes smiling where her mouth still isn’t quite ready. “Yeah, you are.”

He breathes a hint of a laugh and then pulls Noa back against his chest, close but not clinging now, and they stay like that a long while.

**Author's Note:**

> I may come back to this and re-write or add on depending on how this weeks episode goes (hopefully well!).


End file.
